Famous stunt double, great grandmother still performs at 77

By BY MUFFY BERLYN

Published: 2018.02.28 03:18 PM

Looking like identical “Wonder Woman” twins, Jeannie Epper, left, was the stunt double for Lynda Carter during the 1975 to 1979 run of the popular TV series “Wonder Woman.” Epper, an amazing senior, still works as a stunt performer at age 77.

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In a family of stunt performers, it’s hard to stand out as the best. But, Jeannie Epper has done just that.

Her father and mother were stunt doubles, as are her siblings, her children and her grandchildren. Epper, 77, a great grandmother who continues to do stunts, is our Amazing Senior this month.

She has performed in more than 100 movies, including “Kill Bill” (2004) and “Romancing the Stone” (1984).

In “Romancing the Stone,” she swung over a steep ravine on a “vine” as Kathleen Turner, and made the infamous mudslide down a treacherous hill.

According to Entertainment Weekly in its Oct. 12, 2007 issue, her father, John Epper, who rented horses to the movie studios, premiered in the stunt business jumping a horse over a car. As his children grew, they got involved in the stunt business.

Young Jeannie Epper, with bit parts in movies such as “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951), started in the male-dominated field of stunts when she was 18. She was shot off a moving horse.

Epper is a star in the four generations of stunt men and women that populate her family. According to the June 19, 2017 issue of Women You Should Know, an online publication, people in the industry agree that she is the “greatest stuntwoman who’s ever lived.” She was the first woman to be honored by the Taurus World Stunt Awards with a lifetime achievement award in May 2007.

Epper said, “timing, agility and judgement,” are the three most important talents required to perform her work. The latest films in which she performed stunts were “The Amazing Spider-Man” (2012) and “Hot Pursuit” (2015).

She is notable to the general populace from her long-standing work with TV’s “Wonder Woman.” Epper was Lynda Carter’s primary stunt double and was paid $250 a day in the series that ran from 1975 to 1979.

Coincidentally, Epper was born in 1941, the very year the original Wonder Woman character appeared in DC Comics. She is an original wonder woman, crashing through windows, getting hit by cars and surviving, leaping from buildings and standing in the way of danger for the movie stars.